Vantage || Hwang Hyunjin

~Chapter 19~

It all made sense now, little by little, everything started to fit perfectly, every situation, every detail.

"That day, I was going to climb the cliff, but since the tide was oddly low, I headed to the rocks. I wanted to see sunset so I sat down, and while I waited, I kind of scratched off a hole, where I found the shell, and took it out. It had both pearls inside."

I continued

"Then you came, and I just focused on leaving. Either way the tide was going up so I had to leave." I said nervously. "I slipped, and-"

"And I grabbed you and didn't like it. I know the rest." He completed my sentence. "Probably when you slipped, the pearl fell off, that's why I found it when I fell."

"You fell?"

"Yup."

"You should've been careful, why did go there?"

"Same as you. I wanted to see the sunset, and noticed the tide. I also noticed someone else there so I decided to go and do some chatting, but as you now, it didn't go well." He chuckled slightly, his face still facing the floor.

"Why didn't you say something before? Did you seriously not remember me from the beach?" I asked, bothered.

"I couldn't remember you. When I was little I had and accident, so my memory fails some times."

I widened my eyes to what he said. It made my heart sink.

"Are you serious? Hyunjin that's-"

"A lie. I'm joking. I'm just terrible remembering faces." He laughed. I stood up and hit him.

"You don't play with that! That's serious! I felt-"

"Why are you so mad at me?" He questioned, part laughing, part frustrated.

"I don't know! Everything's a mess right now, I want my normal life back! Why wouldn't you say anything before!" I yelled, frustration was the only feeling inside me.

"Well you didn't say anything either Aeri!" He yelled back. At this point, I didn't care if he'd get mad at me for my reason or not, but I couldn't keep it anymore, like I wanted him to understand my reason of keeping it.

"I WANTED YOU TO FEEL LOVED!"

"AND I DIDN'T WANT TO LOOSE YOU!"

We yelled at each other almost at the same time, but I heard his words perfectly. The fact that what he said made my heart skip a beat, made myself angry, he's playing with me.

"You didn't want to what? Was that part or your puppet plan too?!"  I shouldn't have said that, I guess I had to let it out of me somehow. Hyunjin sighed, rubbing his eyes with his hands.

"I didn't want to become a stranger to you again."

I couldn't think of anything else to say, all these mixed feelings were flowing in my head and heart.

"What?" I asked. Words just came out of my mouth.

He sighed again. "You heard me."

"Hyunjin, you're playing with me."

"I'm not."

"How Can you just easily say that after the trip night? You made me accept my feelings for you and it all was a lie. And now you're here saying you didn't want to change because you wanted to keep talking to me? Stop the bullshit."

"Listen, Aeri."

"We don't have time for this. We have to focus on the shell."

"Let me explain properly." He asked

"No, I don't want to hear it. This isn't important, the shell is."

"It's important to me."

He seriously wanted to keep talking about it, but my heart wouldn't handle it well, I just knew it. Before he could keep insisting, I took out my phone and showed him the shell.

"Is that-"

"That's YOUR shell, and your dad is selling it. The reason we switched a lot randomly may be because he took it out of your box and took out the pearl,  who knows how many times."

Hyunjin put his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes, probably of stress.

"You have to talk to him and make him give it back."

"Aeri, the shell's probably sold by now."

"You'll have to do something, we need that shell."

As if the universe was hearing us, we heard his dad coming in, leaving his keys on the table. We both rushed to the entrance. His dad stopped, looked at him, and then looked at me. I could tell he wasn't pleased with my presence. I bowed, but he just eyed me from head to toes.

"Is there a problem?" His dad asked both of us.

"Did you take a shell from my room?"

"Oh that? Yeah."  It annoyed me his unworried tone, as if going through his son's stuff was something normal.

"Why would you go through my stuff?" Hyunjin asked, angry.

"I was looking for toothpaste and found it, It looked expensive, did you buy it?"

"No, i found it at the beach."

"Even better, it's a shame I didn't sell it more expensive."

"You already sold it?!"

"Why are you so worried? I'll just buy you another one, prettier even."

"That's not it. That shell's precious to me, I can't explain but we need it back."

His dad had a confused look, shrugging his shoulders, and walking past us, as if the didn't care at all about what his son just said. His dad made me angry, his unbothered face was frustrating.

"As soon as I published it, someone contacted us and offered the money, it was immediate."

"Do you know who was it, perhaps?" I asked. He didn't seem to like me at all, so he answered annoyed.

"Do you think I meet with every buyer on the internet? Use your brain a little."

"Don't you dare talking to her that way." Hyunjin snapped back, taking one step forward and putting his arm in front of me.  I seriously wanted to answer that rude old man, and I was totally capable of defending myself, but I didn't want to make him angry, he'd probably say nothing more about the shell.

His dad sighed, looking at me and then at Hyunjin.

"If it helps, my asistent wrote his name on my notebook, he came personally to our building to buy it, so we had to enter the purchase manually." He said as he took out the notebook from his bag, throwing it at Hyunjin.

We opened it and went to the last page, it had several names written.

"It's one of the last names, and I think my asistent wrote the product he purchased." As we kept looking through the small writing, his dad added another detail.

"It was an old man, it caught my attention I must say. He didn't look like he had that amount of money, he looked very humble." 

Hyunjin located the product's name written almost at the end of the page.

"Sea Shell w/ pearl. ///$2000 /// Park Sang Tae"